“Filhos de Moí§ambique”
Exhibition “Filhos de Moçambique” by Martim Meirelles.
Maputo, Mozambique
Cinema Scala
Av. 25 de Setembro
July 19 – 5.30 PM
Artist Statement
“Filhos de Moçambique”
In 2016, I had the unique opportunity to spend eleven months volunteering at an orphanage in the town of Mumemo, working closely alongside three hundred orphaned children. Run by the Franciscan Hospitaller Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, this orphanage provides the most vulnerable children with access to basic human needs such as clean water, nutrition, health and education. My ongoing project: “Filhos de Moçambique”, provides an up-close and unembellished look at this nation’s ever-growing orphan population as they aim to break free of the detrimental cycle of poverty and finally establish dominion over their futures. Through the haunting beauty of these children’s gazes, I wish to create a dialogue between the past, present and hopeful future of this young nation.
Biography
Martim Meirelles (b. 1993) is a Portuguese-American artist from New York City working primarily in the medium of photography. He received his BA from the University of Miami in 2015, graduating with a dual-degree in Art and Psychology. Although he photographs mainly in the digital format, Meirelles, enamored of black-and-white images and the wistful feelings they evoke, continues to shoot film.
Inspired by the ardent resolve displayed by the pioneers of social documentary photography as they shed light on the most marginalized and alienated populations, Meirelles strives to make images that illuminate both the beauty and battle of the human condition. In 2014, he was selected by Arte Institute to participate in an artist residency program in which he lived in the small coastal fishing town of Nazaré, documenting the lives and fading traditions of this historic Portuguese fishing community. The images created during this residency were the subject of his first solo exhibition, Nazaré: Beyond the Wave, which opened in 2015.
Meirelles’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in several galleries including the CAS Gallery, Coral Gables, FL, Chelsea Art Tower, New York, NY, IMT Gallery, London, U.K., and Galeria Paul Girol, Nazaré, Portugal. His second solo exhibition opens July 2017 in Maputo and will feature a series of portraits Meirelles made during the eleven months he spent volunteering at an orphanage in Mozambique. Meirelles currently lives and works in New York.
